ing field of new interest, the farmer and his business
hold the center of attention. Beside him, however, stands a dim little
figure hitherto kept much in the background, the farmer's wife, who at
last seems to be on the point of finding a voice also; for a chapter is
now assigned to her in every book on rural conditions and a little
corner under a scroll work design is given to her tatting and her
chickens in the weekly farm paper. Cuddled about her are the children,
and they, the little farm boys and girls, have now a book that has been
written just about them alone--their psychology and their needs. Also,
the tall strong youth, her grown-up son, has his own paper as an
acknowledged citizen of the rural commonwealth. But where is the tall
young daughter, and where are the papers for her and the books about her
needs? It seems that she has not as yet found a voice. She has failed to
impress the makers of books as a subject for description and
investigation. In the nation-wide effort to find a solution to the great
rural problems, the farmer is working heroically; the son is putting his
shoulder to the wheel; the wife and mother is in sympathy with their
efforts. Is the daughter not doing her share? Where is the Country Girl
and what is happening in her department?

It is easier on the whole to discover the rural young man than to find
the typical Country Girl. Since the days of Mother Eve the woman young
and old has been adapting herself and readapting herself, until, after
all these centuries of constant practise, she has become a past master
in the art of adaptation. Like the cat in the story of Alice, she
disappears in the intricacy of the wilderness about her and nothing
remains of her but a smile.

There are some perfectly sound reasons why American country girls as a
class cannot be distinguished from other girls. Chief among these is the
fact that no group of people in this country is to be distinguished as a
class from any other group. It is one of the charms of life in this
country that you never can place anybody. No one can distinguish between
a shop girl and a lady of fashion; nor is any school teacher known by
her poise, primness, or imperative gesture. The fashion paper,
penetrating to the remotest dug-out, and the railway engine indulging us
in our national passion for travel see to these things. Moreover, the
pioneering period is still with us and the western nephews must visit
the cousins in the old h